


Reaching Towards

by mllelaurel



Category: Akatsuki no Yona | Yona of the Dawn
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Spoilers for all of canon, Vignettes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2016-11-26
Packaged: 2018-05-10 07:11:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 9,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5576059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mllelaurel/pseuds/mllelaurel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shin-ah's always wanted friends. That much is certain. But what is friendship, really? How do you <i>do</i> friendship?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Letterblade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Letterblade/gifts).



Shin-ah has always wanted friends. That much is simple. Every cherished, furtive glimpse, saved up behind his eyelids for a rainy day. The children with their spinning tops, laughing and fighting, and laughing again. A pair of girls, arms around each other's waists, heads bent close together, sharing whispered secrets. A group of men, back from a successful hunt, their faces worn and triumphant, trying to outdo one another with tales of their prowess.

Friendship is warmth - of that Shin-ah is certain. But beyond that… What is friendship, really? How does one _do_ friendship? He doesn't know. He's never had the chance to learn, before. 

Before Yona.

***

Shin-ah sees the snowball hurtling toward him out of the corner of his eye, white on a white-capped background, and ducks, almost as an afterthought. It catches Hak instead, smashing against his side, making him jump and swear. So the former Raiju general can be caught off guard. And Zeno, who has fallen onto his back in the snow, laughing uproariously, is quicker than anyone gives him credit for. He hops to his feet quickly enough, as Hak chases him down, dumping handfuls of snow down his shirt. Zeno’s smile only grows brighter. Hak’s is sword’s edge-sharp. And sad, Shin-ah thinks, though he wouldn't be able to explain why. 

The chase ends when Zeno doubles back to Shin-ah, hiding behind him, arms snuggled up and under Shin-ah’s furs. “Come and catch me, Mister!” 

Hak jerks his head at Shin-ah. “Move.” 

Shin-ah crosses his arms and shakes his head, as Zeno, bastion of maturity, sticks his tongue out at Hak. 

Hak smirks. “Are you just gonna let him get away with that?”

Shin-ah gives him a confused look. 

“Don’t look at me like that. He aimed at you first.”

That is true, but the fact stands, they’re both his comrades. The situation may be unresolvable. 

Zeno stretches up onto his tiptoes, throwing his arms around Shin-ah’s neck from behind. “Say, Seiryuu, do you know how to make a snowball?”

Shin-ah would shake his head, but doing so would either put pressure on his throat or dislodge Zeno. Neither’s ideal. “No,” he says instead. Speaking is always strange. His throat feels raspy from disuse, even now that he has cause to speak and those he might speak to. 

Zeno hops down in a puff of snow. Cups his hands around a clump of it. “No worries. Zeno will teach you.”

Shin-ah sits down beside him, dimly aware that the snow will probably soak into his clothes when it melts. But it’s… It’s just worth it, somehow, that’s all. 

He can see every minute detail of Zeno’s movements. The way his fingers arch and squeeze, till the snow in his hands compacts, but not so hard that he’d crush it straight into meltwater. Zeno’s fingers are surprisingly long, and there are tiny nicks along his left thumb and forefinger. Old scars, mostly. Long-healed. 

“Now Seiryuu has to try!”

Shin-ah copies him. He’s good at that. It’s how Ao taught him sword fighting, or how smaller Ao taught him to forage for edible roots. The snowball he makes is exactly the size and shape of Zeno’s. 

“Now what?” he asks. 

Zeno grins. “Now you catch me. If you can,” and he darts sideways. Permission given, Shin-ah lets loose with his missile, making sure to dampen its velocity, so that it wouldn’t harm his companion. Zeno’s quick, but once again, Shin-ah is quicker. 

Zeno does dodge the next one, only to run straight into Hak’s volley. 

“What?” Hak may not be a dragon like the rest of them, but Shin-ah still can’t help but see some fang and claw in him. “You thought I was going to let that slide?”

“Aaah, Mister’s so mean to Zeno!”

“Taste of your own medicine, brat.” 

“Seiryuu, help!” Shin-ah looks helplessly from one of them to the other. “I’m not taking sides,” he finally says. 

“That’s because you’re on my side,” Yona’s voice pipes up cheerfully from behind him, and all at once, it’s as though the world has gone soft and sweet. Yes. He is on her side. He will always be on her side. 

There are snowflakes caught in her hair, each crystalline frond carefully outlined against sunrise-red. It’s beautiful. Shin-ah hopes no one will ever brush them aside with careless fingers. 

“Hey, Hak, do you remember-?”

“Nope.” Hak cuts her off before she can finish her sentence, and flops down into the snow, just like Zeno had done before. 

Shin-ah swallows. Clears his throat. “Why are you doing that?” he asks Hak.

Zeno’s the one who answers for him. “He’s leaving his mark on the world. This way, it will always remember him.”

Hak makes a shuffling noise Shin-ah can’t read very well. Not without seeing his face. He could probably see through the piled-up fluff, if he chose to do so. But he doesn’t. “Until it all melts,” Hak says. “So not much of a mark at all.” 

Zeno shakes his head. “The world will remember, either way.”


	2. Chapter 2

“They say Seiryuu was second among the dragon warriors to reach King Hiryuu.” Kija’s voice is soft and clear, a subtle, unfamiliar accent coming through in his vowels. He sounds older and faraway, eyes closed as he weaves a familiar story. “When the king fled for his life, it was Seiryuu who saw him. They say he cut his way through tangles of twisted, dying trees, and thorny brambles, just to reach his king’s side. For days, he must have foregone food and rest. 

"...He probably drank some water, though,” Kija admits. “Even we can’t go more than three days without, and even that’s pushing it.” 

“Oh, and who was the first, then?” Shin-ah had seen Jae-ha hovering in the treetops, but the speed of the older man’s arrival catches even him a little by surprise. 

Kija frowns “Don’t interrupt. You’d know already, if you’d bothered to listen before.” 

Jae-ha settles down cross-legged. “And what if I wish to know now?”

“Fine,” Kija huffs. “I suppose it can’t be helped.” He gathers himself. “If you are truly interested, then it is my honor to impart the tales of our shared heritage unto you as well.” 

“Unto me, huh?” Jae-ha folds his hands behind his head, bemused. “I’m all ears, oh great teacher.” 

“Hakuryuu was the first.” Kija’s face flushes a little. “Ah, please don’t think of this as me bragging. I’m simply telling the story as I’ve heard it.” Shin-ah already knows this story is important to Kija. His reactions only confirm it. 

Jae-ha reaches over to ruffle Kija’s hair. It fluffs up under his hand, pale bangs sliding into Kija’s eyes, but he doesn’t pull away. “If you’re bragging, I think we’ll all know it.” 

“Precisely!” Kija settles back down. “The man who would become the White Dragon was a soldier under the command of one of the local warlords. He was given the task of guarding the captive Hiryuu. Instead, he abandoned his orders, his rank, the life he must have made for himself… He released the king from his bonds, and fought by his side, till they broke free of the warlord’s fortress. Legends say that every blow meant for Hiryuu that night was deflected by the White Dragon’s claws, and he came out unscathed.” 

“Do you think he’d have made the same choice, without the heavens’ blood boiling in his veins?” Jae-ha muses. He’s sitting up straight now, risen from his normal relaxed pose. 

“Yes.” There’s no doubt in Kija’s eyes. “We’re still capable of making decisions. The blood may guide us, but do you think the dragons of heaven would pick someone weak and thoughtless as their wielder and avatar?”

“Hmmm.” Jae-ha leans back again. “I suppose that’s true.” 

Shin-ah bundles down into his furs, suddenly cold and unsure. Someone strong and wise… It must have been true of the men the dragons originally chose. It’s true of his companions as well, each in his own way. As for him… Shin-ah knows what he’s good at. He can fight with a sword and protect those around him, so long as Seiryuu’s voice doesn’t overwhelm his own. 

How long before it happens again? Before he’s swept away whether he likes it or not? If it had been him, thousands of years ago, Jae-ha’s question wouldn’t be so easy to answer. Then again, if it were him, the gods would have probably chosen someone else. 

Shin-ah doesn’t expect Kija reaching for his hand, pulling it free of the furs, and suddenly, he's scared Kija’s going to ask him what’s wrong, and he knows he doesn’t have the words he would need, to talk about feelings he’s already tangled up in and tripping over. 

Instead, Kija tugs on his hand a little. “Hey, are you still paying attention?” 

Shin-ah nearly falls over with relief. This is an easy question he can answer, and he nods almost before Kija is done speaking. 

“Good, good. Would you like to hear about your predecessor?”

He likes hearing Kija talk, so he focuses on that part of the question and nods again.

“As I was telling you before, King Hiryuu and his first companion quickly wound up lost in the forests of the north, which would later become part of the Wind Tribe’s holdings, and they are welcome to them, I might add. That’s where Seiryuu found them. For them, he sought out the weaving, half-buried paths which would lead them out of the forest. He found hidden streams with water they could all drink, and he was the one who noticed the dying grass at the bank of a poison spring, keeping his companions from harm. 

“At last the woods thinned… But the king’s troubles were not over. The armies of his enemies waited on the other side. It was just three of them against hundreds, but their strength was unparalleled. Seiryuu was terrifying to behold in this battle.” 

Hundreds of men, Shin-ah thinks. They must have seemed so small to the dragon. 

“His enemies fell around him.” 

He must have used his eyes. The sword alone would not have caused such carnage. 

“He fought side by side with Hiryuu and Hakuryuu, but no matter how the battle jostled and tossed them about, never once did he err and strike out at his companions."

Yona's eyes, staring square into his, there on the brief battleground of Katan village. 

"It’s…” Kija swallows visibly. “It can be hard to control your swing, if you’re fighting in a tight space. You have to be in full control. A master of your art."

Yona's voice, calling him back. The one person he could never strike down, bound by the dragons' decree and utterly, helplessly grateful for it. That would be enough, but she _called him back_. Kept him from killing the bandits, as they retreated. Gave him his self back, instead of taking it over or taking it away. 

Yona says she's got no magic of her own, and Shin-ah believes her, but there's magic, he thinks, in simply being the kind of person she is. 

“They say," Kija continues, "that when the enemy soldiers finally turned and ran, Seiryuu collapsed. When he woke again, he barely remembered what he’d done.” 

Had he been lying, or did he simply have it easier? Shin-ah remembers everything, after the fact, even if he doesn’t remember himself at the time. Maybe saying ‘I don’t remember’ was simply easier than explaining the weight of the dragon inside your mind. 

“His king stayed at his side while he slept. Hiryuu’s face was the first he saw when he woke. ‘I remember you,’ Seiryuu told him. ‘You were all I could see. Even if they cut out my eyes, I’d keep seeing you.’”

_This_. This feels true, more than anything else. Even if it never actually happened this way. Even if those words were never spoken by a real man, they ring true, in Shin-ah's ears. 

“Was that all right?” Kija asks, afterward. “You seemed troubled. Or maybe just thoughtful. If so, I apologize for my intrusion.” 

Shin-ah takes his time, thinking it over. Maybe he shouldn’t have taken as long, since Kija seems to fret more and more with every second. “Are we like them?” he finally asks. It's not the right question. Not exactly. But it's the one he asks, so it'll have to do. 

Kija’s face lights up. “Of course! We have to be. We _are_ them, after all.”

“But…” Shin-ah swallows an uncertain lump in his throat. “They were themselves before they were dragons. We never were.”

“We’re still ourselves,” Kija says stubbornly. Then, more gently. “Although my father and I both bear Hakuryuu’s blood, although we were both raised among our kin, his personality was distinct from mine. I’m sure you can say the same of you and your predecessor.” 

That’s true, Shin-ah thinks. He and Ao aren’t the same at all. 

“Was that all of it?” Kija asks. 

Shin-ah wonders if his predecessor, that original of legend, ever mastered the curse which drags them both down into the depths. He doubts Kija knows the answer. No one does anymore, the truth of it lost to the centuries. 

“It helps,” Shin-ah says, and Kija beams, wrapping a wool-clad arm around his shoulders and pulling him along, as the light up overhead begins to tilt into sunset.


	3. Chapter 3

Yona’s group attacks from the rear, so they have the advantage, but the Kai soldiers just keep on coming. Shin-ah zeroes in on a wave of them, and for a moment the whole of his vision is sword and blood. A flash of movement in the corner of his eye, and he whirls just in time to run through an attacker coming at him from the back. Another two flank him from the right, split up, pincer in from either side. 

Shin-ah may not be as quick as Jae-ha or as strong as Kija, but he knows how to stay on his feet and outlast the enemy. He knows how to make them notice him, too. Better him than Yona and Yun up on the jutting cliff, Zeno at their side with his shield. If he can draw fire away from them, he will have done his part. 

He thinks Hak might have the same idea. His spear flashes in the sun, and he swears at the enemy, taunting them, drawing them in. He cuts down one opponent after another, but more close in, till he's surrounded. Shin-ah catches a flash of him, through the soldiers' backs, backhanding a man with the butt of his spear, blood and fire in his eyes. 

The tides of battle shift, boxing them into close quarters, almost-concentric circles of motion. Shin-ah watches carefully for an opening. If he can break the formation of either Hak's attackers or his own, they could join forces. It might be easier that way, it might not. Either way, he's not leaving Hak to fend for himself. 

There it is. Shin-ah flips his sword to his off-hand, throwing the assailants off balance. It will leave him vulnerable on his right side, but if he moves quickly enough, he can break their ranks. He goes side-profile, to make himself a smaller target, and falls back. If he's lucky, it will look like they're the ones pushing him. Like it's not his idea all along. One lightning-quick strike, and another, and the opening widens, and he's through, back to back with Hak. 

"Watch it!" The warning comes through grit teeth, and Shin-ah catches a strike against his blade, back in his right hand, just in time. He isn't so quick with the next one. Sees it coming, but fumbles his counterstrike. The Kai sword's edge glances over the top of his hand, drawing blood, and he's lucky it hasn't cut a tendon, or at least 'lucky' is what he'll think of, when he's not tasting bitterness at the back of his throat. The pain's sudden and sharp, and he knows he can't drop his sword, can't stop to catch a breath, cant-

The man in front of him goes down with an arrow in his throat. Shin-ah doesn't need to turn around to know it's Yona's. 

Behind him, Hak grunts, almost a laugh. "Guess they really hate the look of us.” 

"Mm."

"Fine with me." There's a shallow cut on the side of Hak's head, a streak of blood on his face. He wipes it, one-handed, keeping perimeter with his spear.

Shin-ah nods. Tightens his grip, too busy to think about whether anything hurts. He can tell Hak's covering him as he regroups, though he'd never admit it. His back is warm and solid against Shin-ah's. 

Somewhere up ahead, there is an uproar. The screaming of men and horses, and a cloud of dust churned up by steel-shod hooves. Up ahead, the battle begins to turn. 

"Are we winning yet?" Hak asks. 

It's hard to make sense of everything Shin-ah is seeing. Kouka's banner, flapping in the breeze. A horse snorting and prancing under a blanket of tiger hides. A general turning on his own men, and his own men turning away from him. 

The soldiers up ahead are laying down arms. "We'll win," Shin-ah says. Their own battle won't end so soon, with two armies on the field, but the certainty of it anchors his feet. 

These are Yona's people they're fighting for. Yona's country, and Yona's will to keep them all safe. Of course they will win, her faith and determination coursing in their veins, sure as dragon blood. 

"Of course we will." Hak laughs, grim and joyful all at once, and Shin-ah doesn't need to look to know the crimson horizon he's looking toward.


	4. Chapter 4

It’s too hot inside the tent. The air reeks of vomit and fever sweat. Somewhere to Shin-ah’s right, Kija’s begun muttering to himself. Snatches of nonsense, punctuated by a wet, gurgling cough. 

Shin-ah’s never been sick before. Sickness came to Seiryuu’s village every winter, taking the lives of the elderly, young and infirm, but it’s refused to target him, taunting him in his inability to help them. If he believed in that sort of thing, he’d say this was his punishment, now.

He’s shivering, even through the heat, the muscles between his shoulder blades cramping and seizing up. Shin-ah knows he should hold himself still. Ao’s fallen asleep beneath his left ear, and he doesn’t want to dislodge her. She’s tired from trying to take care of him, but he can’t keep down water, let alone acorns or nuts. _Sorry, Ao._

Eventually, he sleeps, or at least sinks, and the world goes away for a while. He wakes up drenched in sweat, clothing damp and scratchy against his skin. His heart is beating too quickly, the way Ao’s does when she’s frightened. The drumbeat of it is loud enough he can’t hear his companions breathing beside him, and maybe that’s the frightening part. The world feels lopsided, and he _knows_ he’s not thinking the way he normally does. Checking on Jae-ha and Kija on his own should be easy. But the drums of panic drown out everything else, and he finds himself stumbling outside the tent, clutching Yun’s sleeve.

“What are you doing up?” Yun glares, setting down the pile of rags he’d been carrying. 

“Kija… Jae-ha…” Shin-ah gestures frantically at the tent, or somewhere above it. His coordination is shot, and trying to stay upright only makes it worse. 

Yun’s eyes widen, and he darts inside. Shin-ah follows. Watches while Yun leans over the other men, listening to the sound inside their chests, feeling their pulse with his fingers. 

“They’re fine,” he finally says, and Shin-ah collapses at his feet. It’s good to be wrong, even if Yun’s going to be mad at him now. “I mean, they’re still sick, and there’s no fixing any of your personalities.” Yun shoots the sleeping dragons a fond, exasperated look. “But they’re alive.” He crouches by Shin-ah, rearranging his furs so that it’s easier for him to breathe, and tugging him into a more comfortable position. “Did you hallucinate? I heard that can happen, if your body temperature gets high enough.” 

Shin-ah doesn’t know how to answer that. Do people know when they hallucinate? 

Yun brushes back Shin-ah’s hair, his hand gentle and wonderfully cool. “Ugh, you’re burning up. You should have told me right away.” Then, the hand is gone. Shin-ah misses it, but he doesn’t feel strong enough to open his eyes again, let alone get up and follow wherever Yun has gone. 

Minutes pass, or maybe seconds, or maybe hours, and something cold drips down his cheek. A fresh wet rag settles on his forehead. “About time I changed those out,” Yun mutters. Shin-ah can tell that he’s moving around, taking care of the others. 

The tent flap lifts again, letting in light. 

“Don’t leave.” Did Shin-ah just say that? He must have. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he recognizes the voice as his own. 

“I have to…” 

Shin-ah’s hand balls up in the hem of Yun’s shirt. 

“Oh, fine. But I can’t help you get better if I just sit here.”

“It helps.” It helps to know Yun is here, because if Yun’s here, that means no one’s dead. The two thoughts fuse into one. If Yun’s here, he can make them all better. 

“Fine. Let me get your medicine, then I’ll stay. But only if you drink it when I tell you to.”

Shin-ah nods, feels like he’s back on a boat in choppy seas, and regrets everything. 

He falls asleep to the tinny sound of Yun’s grinding wheel against the rim of a bowl, and the hum of a half-heard, half-familiar song. “Long, long ago, when the red, red sun was devoured…”


	5. Chapter 5

It’s empty inside his head, without the other Seiryuu’s presence. Feeling the sand-and-glass grind of the man’s despair had hurt, but it hurt the way change does: necessary. Shin-ah doesn’t regret sharing life and body with him, for a small fraction of time. 

It must have been harder on the others, though he’s the one they fuss over, when they get back to camp. Shin-ah can see the burden of it in the tight line of Yun’s mouth. In the way Kija keeps turning around, like he’s hoping to see something out the corner of his eye, and frowning. 

He doesn’t see Jae-ha at all, till he looks past the tree line. Away. Shin-ah hesitates at first. Jae-ha is the companion he understands least of all. The one who puts Shin-ah on edge, for all that he’d trust the man at his back in any fight. 

Jae-ha doesn’t often hold himself as still as this. Like he’s keeping great motion deliberately at bay. It worries Shin-ah, though he doesn’t know why. 

Shin-ah waits to approach him until he hears the first notes of the erhu’s song filling the air. The melody is smooth and lovely, and Shin-ah can’t figure out why it feels like it’s raging, raising up a storm in his heart. 

“I’m sorry.” It’s good to lead with these words, sometimes. When Ao was angry… it didn’t help _much_ , but it helped. That’s who Jae-ha reminds him of, right now, Shin-ah realizes. Ao, in those final months, when he knew he was losing his eyes. 

Jae-ha’s bow stills. “No need,” he says. His voice is warm and gracious, the hollow note in it almost undetectable. “I think we’re all just grateful you weren’t _really_ going through a rebellious stage.”

“I hurt you,” Shin-ah says. 

“Wasn’t you.” Jae-ha’s eyes are narrow slits, when he says it. “I’d take it up with the other guy, but it seems he’s finally found a way to move on. I can hardly begrudge him _that_.” 

“But I-” _I chose to let him in._

Jae-ha pats the ground next to him. “Here, sit down.”

“Will you try to steal my mask if I do?” Shin-ah knows he can do without it, now, but that doesn’t mean he likes the older man’s teasing, or how naked he feels without the painted wood pressing down between his eyes. 

A quirk of a smile. “Maaaaybe.” 

Shin-ah turns around. 

“I’m joking, I’m joking!”

Maybe it’s worth it, trusting him just this once. Shin-ah crouches next to him. 

The expression on Jae-ha’s face takes him by surprise. By the tone of his words, Shin-ah had expected something playful, and maybe a little evil. Instead, it’s all banked anger again. “What did those bastards _do_ to you, kid?”

“I don’t understand.” 

“Your village,” Jae-ha says. 

“I still don’t…”

“I wondered, before, you know. Maybe you’re just shy, but I’m not sure I’d buy that. Seems to me, you barely know how humans work at all. You don’t get that, with a normal childhood. And then, I hear of what they did to your predecessor. Now, it could have been centuries ago. Perhaps everything’s changed for the better. But I’m a pessimist.” 

Shin-ah swallows. What would it have been like, trapped underground, alone and dying? The spirit Seiryuu had shared his feelings with Shin-ah, but not his memories. “They didn’t do that to me.” The cave-in had been nothing like that, with the men of his village, with Yona and the others trapped along with him, all working for their common survival. 

He can still taste the dust clinging to his tongue, throat spasming on gulps of thin air. 

“That’s…” Jae-ha keeps his fingers curled around the erhu’s neck. Like it’s the only thing that would keep them gentle. “I suppose that’s something.” 

“They were afraid.” Shin-ah’s not sure why he says it. Of course they were afraid. 

“Were you?” Jae-ha shoots back.

Of course he was afraid. Afraid the soldiers would come for all of them, the way they did when he was small. Afraid Ao would get fed up with him and leave, and Ao _did_ leave him, but at least that wasn’t why. He’s still afraid of the burnt-air smell that signals Seiryuu’s curse rising under his skin, about to swamp him and pull him under. 

Is that what Jae-ha’s asking? There are too many things he could be afraid of. 

“Were you afraid of them?” Jae-ha asks. 

Shin-ah shakes his head. 

“Huh.” Jae-ha’s bow touches down on the strings again. Shin-ah listens, arms around his knees. The movement of Jae-ha’s wrist would be easy enough to imitate, he thinks, but even if he did so, he couldn’t make music like this. 

“Tell me about it,” Jae-ha says, after a long silent while. “If you want.” 

He’s leaving Shin-ah an out, with those three words. It would be easier to say he didn’t want to, but that would be its own story, too. 

Shin-ah closes his eyes. The backs of his eyelids are black, in the darkness of the forest, even though he knows there are stars wheeling above them, lighting up the empty heavens. He takes a breath, and the stories come unbidden. His words are not beautiful, but they’re honest. 

When he finally stops talking, the music has gone silent. Jae-ha’s hands are balled up into fists, down in his lap. 

“You’re still angry,” Shin-ah says.

“Not at you.” 

“Then-?”

Jae-ha’s fingers are shaky and ice cold, when they brush feather-light over Shin-ah’s forehead. “You didn’t deserve that, kid. None of it, no matter what they may have tried to tell you.” 

“But…” Jae-ha wasn’t there when his cursed powers flared up in Katan, but he’d seen a past mirror of them, in a long-past Seiryuu. He must know how dangerous Shin-ah is.

And still, all he says is, “You deserved better.”


	6. Chapter 6

They weather the last few brutal weeks of winter among the Wind tribe, at Fuuga. Everyone’s going a little stir-crazy, even the locals, but both Hak and Yona look lighter and happier every day, despite it. When spring finally breaks and the snow begins to drip without turning to ice again, the Wind Tribe’s general declares they’re overdue for a festival. Shin-ah hadn’t realized this smaller Hak was a general, until the others point it out to him, and he still wouldn’t know from the way Hak’s grandfather thumps him on the back and grinds his knuckles into the center of the grinning boy’s head. 

In the Wind Tribe, a party begins before sunset and does not stop till the sun rises again. Those are the rules. The air fills with drumbeat and the soaring cry of multiple flutes. Even Jae-ha’s gotten roped in, not that he seems to mind, with an admiring circle of girls gathered around him. There’s alcohol everywhere, though Shin-ah knows to sip carefully, and then not at all. He can sleep later, and sleeping is all he does, if he has too much. 

Hak's smallest brother asks Yona to dance, and she runs after him, cheeks flushed and skirts flaring behind her. Shin-ah watches her in motion, her form distorted through the flames of the bonfire, and he is mesmerized. When her partner is tired, she catches hold of Hak’s sleeve and pulls him in, grumbling half-heartedly. His arms fold around her as the music slows, and she rests her cheek right where his heart would be. By the time the dance is over, Hak’s not pretending to grumble anymore. 

Shin-ah doesn’t think Yona’s coming toward him in particular, after she and Hak separate, but she is. “Dance with me?” Her eyes glitter in the firelight, and she’s holding out her hand, just like she had back in Seiryuu village, and Shin-ah’s dragon-gifted vision blurs, eyes stinging. “Oh… Did I…? Did I say something wrong?”

He shakes his head. Doesn’t even say that he doesn’t know how to dance. Just rises from his spot, careful as his hand touches hers. She’s not as delicate as she looks, but she’s precious to him in all her strength. 

He’s made the choice to follow her, all those months ago, and he follows her now, will always follow her, no matter where she might lead. The air is full of popping sparks and the scent of burning pine. Yona stretches up on her tiptoes, wiping away the stray, unbidden tears, and his eyes decide not to make any more, after that, although his heart feels so full it might burst.


	7. Chapter 7

_He thinks he’s starting to see._

_Friends reach out to one another._

He remembers seeing without seeing. Through the eyes of his body, unmasked and piercing, but that was only the smallest, faintest part of it. His friends, separated and struggling in the darkness of the cave. Their fears curled around the corners of his vision. He could feel the frantic beating of their hearts. 

Ao had once told him he’d have to control his powers. But what Ao meant was stop using them altogether. If Ao really was going to teach him, like he’d promised, well… he’d run out of time before he could. Shin-ah doesn’t blame him. The control he’d learned since is hard-won, and his head aches with it sometimes, just like his muscles ache after he works out with his sword. 

But this? This was easy. Some part of him _knew_ how to see in the dark of half-existence. How to lull his friends to sleep, so they wouldn’t be harmed. No pain, no fear. Just a dreamless sleep, without Seiryuu’s shadow bearing down on them, and it’s days before Shin-ah realizes that for the first time in his life, it felt like _him_ using the powers and not the dragon. He stops. Forgets to breathe and doesn’t know how to feel except relieved. 

He doesn’t feel as good about intruding on Zeno’s confrontation with the other Seiryuu. Shin-ah thought he might look away, but worry for his friend made him linger. So what if Zeno could heal from any wound? It didn’t mean he should have to. 

And then… 

_”I just can’t help loving all of you.”_

Shin-ah doesn’t know who the words were meant for. The long-dead Seiryuu, of course, but even though he was an interloper; even though he could barely feel his body at the moment, he still couldn’t help the way his heart constricted in return. The way his hands are still shaking now, hours after the fact. 

Zeno’s got a blanket wrapped around his shoulders while Yun repairs the outer layers of his clothing. At least he doesn’t seem cold, wriggling his toes in front of the campfire. Shin-ah scoots closer to him. Slides off the mask and lays it aside. Drops his head onto Zeno’s shoulder, eyes closed, and breathes in musty wool, feeling Zeno’s chest rise and fall. 

Zeno’s the reason they’ve been moving all their bedrolls closer and closer together every night. Half the time, Shin-ah wakes with a skinny arm in his face, with a puff of yellow hair tucked under his chin. 

He didn’t use to wonder how long Zeno had been alone, before falling in with them. 

“Seiryuu’s cuddly today,” Zeno mumbles, content. 

Zeno always calls him that. His nicknames are part of what makes Zeno _Zeno_. But tonight, it sits badly, like a knot of nostalgia, double vision and ‘that’s not me’ in his stomach. 

“Ah.” Zeno’s hands card through his hair, one finger tracing down to the tip of his nose. “Zeno’s been unfair, hasn’t he,” and Shin-ah hasn’t even said anything, but Zeno’s good like that. Knowing what he’s thinking, even if there are no words. 

“It’s not-”

“Shin-ah.” Zeno says his name, slowly and deliberately, like it’s foreign on his tongue. Like its simple sounds carry all the weight of his earlier confession. “You really do remind Zeno of him, though.” 

“The other Seiryuu?” The spirit had never told Shin-ah his name. Might not have remembered it anymore, after all those years underground. 

“No. Well. A Seiryuu, yes.” Zeno sighs. “His name was Abi. And Zeno promised to call him that, even if everyone else forgot there was more to him than his eyes.” His voice drops to a whisper. “Zeno’s not very good at keeping promises.” 

“He was Hiryuu’s dragon. Like you,” Shin-ah realizes. The Seiryuu of legend. Of Kija’s tales and ghost stories whispered around the hearthfire. 

“Mmm.” Zeno settles an arm around Shin-ah’s shoulders. “He was haughty and rude, and he never forgave the world for hurting him the way it did. He was so stubborn, and loyal, and he was my friend. 

“He’s been dead for all those hundreds of years, and I still don’t know how he died.” 

What could Shin-ah possibly say to that? ‘I won’t die?’ Impossible and untrue. ‘I’m sorry?’ Not enough. Too trivial for a grief this old. 

“He never forgave himself either,” Zeno says. “Not while I knew him. He was the first to hide his eyes under a mask. Did you know a Seiryuu’s eyes can’t be cut out?” 

It must be true, Shin-ah thinks. Otherwise, that would be an easy way of lifting the curse. “Did the mask help?” he asks.

“I don’t know.” That, in itself, tells a story. Either Zeno or this Abi must have cut off contact soon after. What would it be like, Shin-ah wonders, to walk away from everyone you know. There are times he suspects it’s what he _should_ do. But it’s not what his friends would want of him. It’s not what _he_ wants, and somewhere along the line, what he wants has begun to matter a little. 

“Thank you,” Zeno says, out of the blue. Shin-ah can’t stop himself from blinking in surprise, eyes open then closed again, and Zeno’s face looks so sad in that splinter of a moment. “You really are such brave children. You never cease to surprise me, any of you.”

“Brave?”

“You’re here with Zeno, aren’t you?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because running is the easiest thing there is.”

He’d tried running from Yona when he first saw her, with the dragon’s blood throbbing in his eyes, leaving him blind and all-seeing. It was the hardest thing he’d ever done. The wrong thing to do, in the end.

“I don’t want to run,” he says. 

“Oh?”

You were supposed to run when you saw a monster, and that’s what Zeno had called himself, where only the other Seiryuu should have heard him. ‘A monstrous pit of endless life.’

“I don’t think there’s such a thing as monsters,” Shin-ah says, and it tips the world over, because if he isn’t a monster then what is he at all? But if he’s a monster, then the same might be said of his long-ago predecessor. Of _Zeno_ , who’d been so kind to him. 

A blurry memory tickles the back of his mind. Pale fingers ruffling his hair. Hair glinting gold in the sunlight, still not half so bright as the man’s smile…

“You didn’t run from me” Shin-ah says. “You came back. That’s one promise you’ve kept.” 

Zeno’s voice is no less gentle in that moment, when he says, “There _are_ monsters out there. We just happen to call them gods.”

“I don’t understand...” Shin-ah knows little enough of gods. This makes as little sense as anything else. Or as much, depending on how you look at it. He doesn't ask why Seiryuu insists on his so-called gifts weighing so heavily on the shoulders of his so-called chosen, and Seiryuu doesn't answer. 

“I don’t mean they’re evil,” Zeno says. “But they could care less about any of us, and that, perhaps, is the greatest sin. All but one, and he chose humanity over the heavens a long time ago. Zeno tried, all those years ago, to be more like him. But maybe he became more like _them_ instead.” 

“You came back,” Shin-ah insists. 

He wouldn’t have felt the tears if one hadn’t splashed on the side of his face, rather than his furs, and that’s more than enough to make him open his eyes. To find himself eye-to-eye with Zeno, both of them looking like they’d been caught red-handed, and Shin-ah _knows_ Zeno is someone he can’t hurt, even by accident. 

_Maybe I’ll keep them open_ , he thinks, and winds his hand through Zeno's hair. Watches Zeno's eyes droop shut, feels something in him uncoil. He's not good at being comforting; not really sure what he's doing at all. But maybe this will help. Maybe this will be enough.


	8. Chapter 8

_When you’re hurt, they care for you._

The dragons are tough, but Zeno aside, they’re not invulnerable. It’s only a matter of time before Jae-ha fails to stick one of his landings and winds up in a heap on the ground instead, face tight with pain. His legs are bruised up but fine. Yun makes sure to reassure him of that right away, as he wrestles with Jae-ha’s coat. 

His right arm’s already starting to swell. It’s obvious to Shin-ah, even through Jae-ha’s sleeves, the knob of his wrist sharp and prominent. “Compound fracture,” Yun says, and Jae-ha swears under his breath, words slurring together into a single, foul line. 

Over the next few days, Shin-ah watches as he Jae-ha tries to pretend everything’s alright, adamantly refusing to alter any of his routines. Sure, he bats his eyelashes and presses the back of his hand against his forehead, bemoaning his fate and demanding others wait on him. But his words come out lilting and far too quick: a sharp-edged joke, like a battle stance. Making light when he wants the others to believe everything is funny. He’s a good actor, but Shin-ah’s good at watching. He knows the exact moments when Jae-ha’s smile leaves his face. 

It’s Jae-ha’s hair that sells him out, in the end. He’d never let it look anything less than perfect. Shin-ah’s seen him throw knives with his off-hand, quick and deadly, so he knows Jae-ha can manage. It just takes him longer. The normally easy task now takes concentration and effort. Which turns to clumsiness if he’s in a hurry, trying to not be seen. 

Shin-ah watches him at his grooming ritual, early one morning, before the others wake up. The third time he manages to drop his comb, he looks up and takes notice of Shin-ah’s presence. 

“You’re up early.”

“I woke up.” Shin-ah’s sleep has never been regular. He takes it when he can get it; it evens out to enough.

“Has anyone ever told you you’re a little too good at sneaking up on people.”

“Yes.” 

Jae-ha reaches for the comb with his right hand, out of habit, wincing as the pain reminds him why he shouldn’t. 

“Can I?” Shin-ah asks. 

“Hm?”

Shin-ah holds out his hand. “I’d like to help.” 

Jae-ha’s free to refuse. For a moment, Shin-ah thinks he’s going to. Instead, he gives Shin-ah a crooked smile. “How bold, asking to touch a man’s hair.”

“You touch everybody else’s all the time.”

“What can I say? I’m a bold sort of man.” 

“So, can I?”

“Well,” Jae-ha hands it over with a flourish. “If you insist.” 

Jae-ha’s hair feels silky to the touch, softer than Ao’s fur, save maybe back when she was a kit. It runs through Shin-ah’s hands, quicksilver and almost slippery. He gathers it at the nape, before running the comb through the length of it; he’d be less likely to pull, that way. There are some tangles, but they’re not as bad as they could be. The muscles in Jae-ha’s back shudder and tense slightly, when Shin-ah’s hand lights on it. _Is that something I should ask him about?_ Shin-ah thinks, but the moment is gone by then. He keeps at his task, until the tension bleeds away slowly and Jae-ha’s shoulders slump. 

“You’re not half-bad at that,” Jae-ha mutters approvingly, just when Shin-ah’s starting to think he’s fallen asleep. 

“I just do it the way Yun does.” Shin-ah’s hair has needed trimming several times since he’s joined the group. Ao may have kept his long, but Shin-ah’s never gotten the knack for it. Yun’s all business with his scissors, as he is with everything else, but he’s gentle, too. He’s always gentle, even when he’d like to pretend otherwise. “Has anyone else done this for you?” he asks, before he can think better of it.

Jae-ha laughs. “The old lady has, a few times. Just don’t let her know I told you. She’s got an image to uphold, after all.”

“I liked her,” Shin-ah says, and it’s true. Old Gi-gan was kind to all of them, even when she was intimidating. 

“She’s likable. That’s my curse for the last thirteen years, isn’t it? To be well and truly surrounded by likable people.”

“Doesn’t sound like much of a curse to me.”

“It can be,” Jae-ha says. “But I suppose it doesn’t have to be, does it?” _This must be one of those Jae-ha things I don’t understand_ , Shin-ah thinks. Better to leave it alone, for now. 

“Will you let me keep helping you?” he asks. “Until your injuries have healed?”

Jae-ha waves his left hand. “Are you worried about me? How sweet.” His voice is lilting again. “I’m fine. It’s not like this is the first time I’ve managed to break something. Nothing to worry about, so long as it’s not my neck.” 

“And you didn’t have someone helping you, those times?”

Jae-ha’s back tightens down again, the moment he says it, muscles going bone-rigid. “The first time? Hah, I’d say not. Beyond that…” He shrugs, one-shouldered, and Shin-ah wonders if this all connects to the sleeves Jae-ha never removes if he can help it. To the faint abrasion scars circling his wrists, hidden under those sleeves from all eyes but Shin-ah’s. To the village he’d left behind and never regretted. 

_I’d like to help_ , Shin-ah thinks. 

Dry grass and pine needles crunch, as Jae-ha turns around. “There goes my curse again,” he says, light and flippant. “You’re such a good kid. It’s really unfair.” 

“How is that-?”

“If you’d like some company on mornings like this, I don’t mind.” Jae-ha’s smile is wistful and _real_ , Shin-ah’s almost certain. Jae-ha hasn’t answered his question - hasn’t even let him finish asking it, really, but maybe that’s alright. Maybe, for once, he’s not hitting a wall, but rather climbing over it, and if he doesn’t know what lies on the other side of that wall, that’s fine too. 

“Still, it’s a shame?” Jae-ha muses, startling Shin-ah out of his thoughts. “Now would be the perfect chance to make a play for your mask. If only my strength wasn’t compromised!”

Shin-ah glares at him. Right. Maybe they still have a ways to go.


	9. Chapter 9

_When you fight, they fight by your side._

For someone who dislikes fighting, Yun spends an awful lot of time with blood on his hands. 

Shin-ah doesn't get the chance to look around and check on him until the bandits have been driven off. Some of them won't be leaving anytime soon, fallen to Hak's spear and Shin-ah's own sword. More worrying is the damage they've left behind them. 

This isn't much of a village, half-hidden and wary, similar enough to Seiryuu's to make Shin-ah's spine prickle uncomfortably. But that's where the resemblance ends. They've no guardian of their own; no real way of defending themselves from brigands before Yona's arrival, and this defenselessness has taken its toll. 

Yun doesn't swear casually; not the way Hak or Jae-ha do, but the stream of technically polite words coming from his mouth sounds about the same, right now. He's knelt next to a man with a jagged sword gash in his side, pressing a wad of cloth against the wound. "No good… I'm going to have to sew it." His head snaps up when he sees Shin-ah approach. "Don't just stand there! Help me."

"What do I do?" 

"Hold this. No, wait. Get me something to sterilize this with, first. Distilled spirits if they have them, but water will do." Spoken in the man's direction, though still aimed at Shin-ah, as Yun returns to his task. 

There are no spirits or wine in this village, as it happens, so water it is. Shin-ah puts the bucket down gently, where Yun can reach it, then crouches down to help. "Hold 'this,' you said?"

Yun gestures at the wound. "It won't clot, but at least you can keep him from bleeding out completely while I get the needle threaded. The blood on the cloth has darkened since Shin-ah last looked. He doesn't know if that's a good or bad thing. Some of the blood is drying, but there's more seeping through, dyeing everything bright all over again. Shin-ah's used to the sight of it by now. Still, he hates the way it feels on his hands, slimy, then crackling dry. 

Despite this, there's something soothing about watching Yun at work. Shin-ah moves his fingers out of the way, as needle threads through skin, closing it up, one tiny fraction at a time. "Will he be all right?" he asks, when Yun pauses at last to wipe his forehead with a grimy hand. 

Yun shrugs. Shin-ah can see the dip of his throat as he swallows. "Who knows. If he lives the night, he'll live." It's surprising, hearing him speak like that. Yun's smart, and he's good with his hands, and he's not shy about either of those things. Seeing him uncertain stirs up Shin-ah's own unease all over again. He watches as Yun plunges his hands into the bucket, shivering at the cold. The water's already been dyed red, several times over. "Any more critically injured?"

Shin-ah shakes his head. Everyone else the bandits had gotten to is either well enough to take care of themselves, or already dead. 

"Right." Yun straightens his back with a sigh. "That's it then, huh? Help me move him indoors, then go and get some rest," he adds, when Shin-ah can't think of anything to say in return. 

"What about you?"

"I'll stay with this idiot," Yun says.

"Why is he an idiot?"

Yun scowls. "He jumped in front of a bandit's sword, didn't he? That makes him an idiot." Neither of them actually knows how the man was injured. They hadn't gotten there in time. 

"I'll stay too," Shin-ah says. 

Yun glares at him, more tired than angry.

"There could be another attack," Shin-ah says. "I'll guard."

It's not like he thinks it'll actually happen, and he's pretty sure Yun knows that, too. But this is another form of battle, Shin-ah realizes. A fight to the death, and here Yun stands, primed to face it alone.

"All right," Yun says. Then, after a moment, "Thank you." 

The man dies, sometime in the deepest hours of the night. Shin-ah sees it first: the way his chest stops moving; the way his hands clench at his sides, then let go. 

"Yun…"

"Yeah." Yun's voice is quiet, oddly choked, his face streaked with tears. He doesn't bother to hide them; he never does. 

Yun already knows, even without the proof Shin-ah's eyes offer him. He's known all along, and he chose to stay anyway. 

"I'm-"

"Yeah. Me too. We should…" Yun swipes a grimy sleeve over his face. "…tell someone. His family - does he have a family?"

Shin-ah doesn't know. They'll find out by morning, either way. 

Yun's shoulders shake. "Is this what it's going to be like?" Even quieter, easier for Shin-ah to read the words on his lips than hear them out loud. "It doesn't even take much. One false move. One bad decision, and it could be one of _you_ stupid lot, and you know what the worst part is?" He doesn't wait for Shin-ah to reply. "You're all bleeding hearts. I can already hear whoever's left telling me how it's _not my fault_ , and _that's_ it! That's the worst part."

They've been lucky so far. Shin-ah knows that. Well. Lucky and powerful, especially now that they know what Zeno can do. It's not _all_ luck. But some of it… Some of it is. They can still get separated. The enemy can still surround and isolate them. As dedicated as they all are to keeping Yona safe - it didn't keep her and Lady Lili from being spirited away by Sei's raiders, did it? 

"But it _wouldn't_ be your fault," Shin-ah insists. 

Yun whirls back around to face him. "You think I'd want to hear that? You think I'd rather hear that there was _nothing I could do?_

Oh, Shin-ah thinks. _Oh._

"That's why I'm here," Shin-ah says. "To make sure it doesn't happen." The gods gave Seiryuu his eyes so he could see danger before it saw him, and seeing it wipe it from the earth, before it could touch his companions. It's a decisive, ruthless thought, and it lances through his mind. For a moment, Shin-ah wonders if it's him thinking it, or the ancient dragon coiling restlessly in his blood. 

No, this is him. He's capable of that too, isn't he? If it means being able to protect these people he's come to care for so desperately and helplessly. 

"Does it help?" Yun asks. "Knowing what you _could_ do. Knowing what you're here to do - and knowing you could fail anyway. Does it really help?"

How do you answer something like that? "I don't know. But I fight anyway." So does Yun. So do all of them. 

After a long moment, Yun nods, just like he did when he first let Shin-ah stay with him. "So we're both sentimental fools," he says with the tiniest ghost of a smile. Another moment, and Shin-ah feels a soft thump against his shoulder, feels wisps of hair brushing his cheek. He stays very still, the way he does with a frightened animal, letting Yun use him as a pillow, or maybe a pillar. 

It's a long way till morning, but they'll still be here when it comes.


	10. Chapter 10

_Friends teach you what they know, and you teach them in return._

 When Yona tells Shin-ah she wants him to teach her something, he’s afraid she’ll ask for the sword again. Instead, she asks him about the terrain, about the plants growing around them. The mountainous region they’re passing through is similar enough to the forests and caves he’s grown up in. So he tries, he really does, but the similarity is only surface-deep.

 “Why don’t you ask Yun?” he tells her, feeling like a failure.

 “I’m going to,” she says. “But I… I wanted to ask you too.”

 “Why?” It makes no sense. He’s not much use here, and Yun knows _everything_.

 “I wanted to talk,” Yona says. “With you, I mean.” He stiffens, and she starts. “Oh, I don’t mean in a bad way! Or… Or about anything in particular. Just talk. We haven’t done that in a while, right?”

 “We talk.” Shin-ah says. Is it not enough? Does she feel like she doesn’t know him, even after all this time? The fear is cold in the pit of Shin-ah’s belly. There’s nothing he could say to that. He’s not always sure he knows who he is either. He’s never bothered to wonder, before he met her.

 “We do,” Yona agrees. She looks, Shin-ah realizes, almost as lost as he feels. “Still…”

 Shin-ah fights the urge to burrow into the fur around his shoulders. “I think I recognize those mushrooms,” he says, lowering himself to a crouch. “They’re mushrooms, though, so you don’t want to test that. It can get pretty bad, if you eat the wrong ones.” A long night when he was fourteen pays testament to that. Hours spent curled up with his arms around his midsection, wondering whether he was going to die. Wondering how that was possible, before another Seiryuu was born, and the half-crazy conviction that he would live, if only because of that. Later, lucid again, he’d realize that his successor would have been born regardless, even with Shin-ah ten years in the ground. A curse isn’t human. It doesn’t care, the way men do. It doesn’t need to be followed to the letter.

 “They didn’t have mushrooms at all, where I’m from,” Yona tells him. “There was a garden, with flowers and trees, but nothing like this.”

 “And you didn’t leave?” Shin-ah ventures.

 Yona shakes her head. “Just once,” she says. “Before Hak and I left for good.” It’s a familiar story. Once upon a time, she’d stayed in her garden, and he in his cave. A funny sort of kinship.

 “Do you like it better out here?” Shin-ah asks hesitantly, and Yona nods.

 “I do. I don’t know if the person I was a year, two years ago, would have. But I do, very much.”

 “Even if it’s dangerous?”

 There’s a gleam in Yona’s eye. “It’s dangerous everywhere. I just didn’t know it, before.” Her shoulders hunch up. “I didn’t know anything back then. Not even what the flowers in my garden were called, or how miserable things were in Kouka.”

 “I didn’t know that either,” Shin-ah says.

 “It’s not the sort of thing you can learn without going out. I’m glad we both did.”

 Shin-ah marvels at how easy it seems, for her to say that. Does she ever regret? Does the fear of the open sky ever paralyze the breath in her lungs, the way it does with him? Do her words ever get caught somewhere between mind and mouth, the way his do?

 “You’re braver than I am,” he finally says.

 “I’m not, though.” She leans her chin in her hands. “I’m scared all the time. And I keep wanting to cry, and when I do, I can’t stop.”

 “But you keep going anyway,” Shin-ah says.

 “I have to. For all our sakes.”

 “Are you-” He hesitates. “Aren’t you tired?”

 She replies sideways. “It’s for my sake, too. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to stand still. Not ever again.”

 “Is that why you’re learning to fight?” he asks.

 She nods. Purses her mouth. Looks up at him, eyes on his. “Remember when I asked you?”

 He looks away, then looks back, because this is even harder if he can’t see her face.

 “You said you weren’t going to teach me because your sword has no pommel.”

 “It doesn’t.” Shin-ah says.

 “Is that really why you said no?” Yona asks.

 “It's not,” he says, after a long moment.

 “Then why not?”

 “I don’t know how,” Shin-ah admits.

 “I’ve seen you fight” Yona sounds incredulous.

 He shakes his head. “How to teach. It’s not the same as knowing how to…” How to stab someone. “I’ve never taught anyone before. I could have hurt you.” It’s the least of all the ways he could have possibly hurt her, but she already knows the others.

 Yona scoffs lightly. “It’s not like Hak’s a great teacher, either. He just assumes everyone’s going to be brilliant like him, and skips all the early steps.”

 “But you learn anyway.”

 “I have to,” she repeats. “How did you learn?”

 “Ao taught me.” Shin-ah can’t remember if he’s ever told her about Ao.

 Yona’s eyes dart up to where the squirrel is playing in the canopy, up above their heads.

  _Guess not._ “The last Seiryuu,” Shin-ah says.

 “Oh.” Yona’s fingers brush his, and Shin-ah lets her take his hand. Questions flicker over her face, mixed in with sympathetic grief. “You must miss him a lot.”A guess on her part, but a good one. There’d been no other Seiryuu at the hidden village, by the time she arrived. Ao wouldn’t have even known of her existence.

 Yona’s fingers squeeze, and Shin-ah realizes he’s forgotten to nod.

 “Was he a good teacher?” she asks.

 “He was like Hak,” Shin-ah says. It’s not the whole truth. With Ao, there was a lot more yelling. But just like her, Shin-ah learned. He had to.

 Yona snorts, laughing. “Experts, right?”

 “Right.” It comes out more of an echoing question than an affirmation. “But I’m like them, too.”

 “It’s too bad,” Yona says, and for some reason, Shin-ah pictures him and Yona up in the Seiryuu caves. Her small hands wrapped around a heavy hilt. The gravity in her stance. Would he have snapped at her, if she got things wrong? He knows she makes mistakes. Hears Hak tease her about it all the time.

 But Hak’s not angry. Ao had been.

 He hates the idea of being angry at her. At _anyone_. It prickles down his spine and curdles his stomach.

 “Are you okay?” Yona asks, and Shin-ah doesn’t know. All he knows is he doesn’t much like where this train of thought is going.

 He’d never thought of Ao as someone who was bad at what he did. Ao, who was the closest Shin-ah’s had to a father. Who took care of him, when everyone else turned away.

 Who looked happy for the first time in Shin-ah’s memory, in the blind moments before his death.

  _Did I make it worse?_ The thought cuts through Shin-ah like a narrow blade. _He must have hated, having to take care of me._

  _Did he hate me?_

 “Hey…” Yona’s touching his hand again. He still hasn’t answered her question.

 “I’m… I’m alright.” Shin-ah tries to shake it off, focus on the moment. But the worry lingers.


End file.
